SDSU Circle K Members Hershey Guzman, Imani Baldi and Griffin Gilmore joined us bright and early this morning as we gathered for our weekly meeting. They announced their upcoming Talent Show on March 19. It will feature not only SDSU students but also students from Patrick Henry High School and Lewis Middle School. We were also thrilled to welcome Christina Meeker, a former two-time president of Patrick Henry High School Key Club. Christine currently works at Words Alive, serving as the Volunteer Program Manager for the office and its many programs. We are always thrilled to mentor our student leaders and it is gratifying to watch them go on to successful careers and rewarding lives!

President George Butterstein ran a busy meeting, helping us plan for upcoming events. Doug Grosmark reported that his K-Kids Club at Hearst Elementary School is preparing for their annual fundraiser for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. He reported that in the last eight years, his students have collected almost $10,000 for this great cause! John Crawford thanked us for bringing in lots of jars of peanut butter and jelly in preparation for his Lewis Builders Club’s food drive for the homeless. Next Thursday, the students will prepare P, B & J sandwiches and pack them in lunch bags containing fruit and water and a note of encouragement, which will then be delivered downtown. Last year they prepared 400 lunch bags and hope to do even more this year. They used money from fundraisers to purchase fruit and water and are grateful to our members who donated food, especially our members Chris and Gay Holbrook, owners/operators of Grocery Outlet, for donating the sandwich bread. Plans are also underway for the opening of the Allied Gardens Little League season on February 24. We will be on hand to feed the hungry sluggers and cheer them on to another fun and successful season! In other good news, we have started to receive new brick orders for the PHHS Commemorative Brick Campaign to support their athletic organizations!

Our Kiwanian of the Week was Marianne Lindsay. Marianne has lead an unusual life, to say the very least. Her mom, the youngest of 10 children, came from an Italian family that settled on the East Coast. She married Marianne’s dad while he was in the Merchant Marine and they moved to California. Marianne has two brothers and a sister. Times were tough for all of them after her dad left and her mom had to manage on her own, a task that seemed to be overwhelming. After 6th grade, Marianne was given the opportunity to attend summer camp thanks to the generosity of an anonymous donor. She believes that it was that act of kindness by a generous donor that made her promise herself to pay the gift forward someday. She states “This is where my heart for charity and volunteerism began.” Because of her difficult family situation, Marianne attended many different schools, six different schools in five different cities in ninth grade alone. In spite of all the turmoil in her early life, Marianne is now a successful business owner who has kept her promise to help others in need. We are glad she is a part of our Kiwanis family!

Our Kiwanian of the Day was Doug Grosmark. He collected Happy/Sad Dollars and quizzed us on fun animal facts in preparation for today’s guest speaker, Alexandra Mares, the Assistant Director of Philanthropy for the San Diego Humane Society. Serving San Diego County since 1880, San Diego Humane Society operates campuses in San Diego, Escondido and Oceanside.They offer San Diegans a wide range of programs and services that strengthen the human-animal bond, prevent cruelty/neglect, provide medical care, educate the community on the humane treatment of animals and provide safety net services for all pet families needing assistance with keeping their pets. As San Diego’s oldest nonprofit organization, they are proud that they are a “no kill shelter” which means they have a zero euthanasia policy toward healthy and treatable animals. They started the first Kitten Nursery in the country where orphaned and abandoned kittens, 0-4 weeks old are cared for before they graduate to foster care and eventually to a new and welcoming home. They have a behavioral center which offers a wide variety of pet training programs. In 2014 they merged with Project Wildlife who’s mission is to improve the quality of life for local wildlife and the community as the primary resource for animal rehabilitation and conservation education. Since 1972, they have given injured, orphaned and sick wild animals a second chance at life. Alex credits the over 5,000 volunteers who help the Humane society “Inspire Compassion” for our animal friends in San Diego County.